Rescue Flares
by hushedgreylily
Summary: The aforementioned rest of their lives, after Claire and Owen get together in the aftermath. Sequel to Distress Flare. Considerably less smutty, a whole lot fluffier, and with a little angst because I can't resist. Has turned into quite a few parts, because apparently I have a lot to say.
1. I

**RESCUE FLARES**

 **The aforementioned rest of their lives, after Claire and Owen get together in the aftermath. Sequel to Distress Flare. Considerably less smutty, a whole lot fluffier, and with a little angst because I can't resist. In two parts, because apparently I have a lot to say.**

 **I was so impressed with the feedback to Distress Flare I couldn't resist giving Jurassic World/Clawen another crack, a great deal sooner than anticipated.**

 _ **Previously…**_

" _Where are we?" he whispers, moving his fingers in circles on her skin, "Where did we end up?"_

 _And when she replies, it's pretty much the only thing left that still makes sense._

" _The first day of the rest of our lives."_

 **Part I**

The first day of the rest of their lives is somewhere as close to hell as two people who've faced the ultimate predator can get. Before they even make it onto the ground floor of the hotel, they're ambushed.

It happens in the elevator. They get into it, after agreeing to go down and see what's on offer for breakfast, Owen decidedly unromantically announcing he needs something to eat after ' _a night like that_ '. The moment before the doors slide closed, someone (a perfectly innocent looking young woman) rushes in. There are a few seconds of silence once the doors have closed, and for a minute Claire thinks they've been lucky, this woman hasn't been watching the news, or she somehow doesn't recognise them. A few seconds, and then the woman's fingers press the emergency stop button, and she turns to them, with eyes suddenly of a predator.

"How does it feel to be responsible for the deaths of so many people, Ms Dearing?"

She's got a little notepad and a pen in her hand, and she's darting her eyes between the two of them. She knows exactly who they both are, and she has them cornered.

Claire freezes. Which is ridiculous, because her whole time at this job, she's dealt with so many unwanted reporters, appropriately quelling their questions before they've hardly started asking. But never like this. Never with words almost straight out of her nightmares. She freezes.

She feels a hand against the small of her back, a large, rough, suddenly so familiar hand, and she hears Owen's voice whilst still frozen.

"No comment." There's ice in his tone, and something of a fight. It comforts her that it's there, there needs to be someone with all the battle in them when she's falling short.

The girl with the notepad's too gutsy for her own good. She doesn't even glance at Owen.

"How does it feel to have survived when so many didn't? What are your plans for acknowledging that the whole Jurassic World problem stems from a number of poorly made decisions by members of management staff in the park? When will there-"

"No. Comment." Owen says through gritted teeth, and reaches past the girl suddenly to release the emergency stop button. There's something of a threat in his tone, and it's as if the girl who knows exactly who they are suddenly remembers eleven years in the Navy followed by being the alpha to a group of dinosaurs. She flinches as he moves towards her, and she doesn't say another word, hurrying out of the elevator when they reach the ground floor.

As the elevator doors slide back closed and she hasn't moved, Owen manages to make eye contact with Claire, seemingly breaking her out of her reverie.

"You want to go back up and get room service?"

She manages a nod, and Owen presses the button of the top floor again, taking a deep breath.

His hand comes back to rest on the small of her back.

* * *

They hardly leave the room, the next few days. Shortly after breakfast, Karen arrives, running hands absent-mindedly through tousled hair, barely raising her eyebrows at Owen in the room with her sister.

"How were the boys overnight?" he asks, with something of an age-old understanding in his tone that suddenly makes Claire think _eleven years in the military,_ and realise although there's so much about Owen Grady she doesn't know, she wants to know and try to understand all of it.

"Not too bad, given everything." Karen sounds ineffably _tired._ "I don't know that they slept, though. They insisted on taking the bedroom together – they haven't wanted to sleep in the same room since Gray was about five… and they shut the door… I wouldn't sleep, if I was them."

Owen doesn't answer that, just says, "The press are everywhere. You should keep them out of the public eye for a while, until it's all died down."

 _Until it's all died down._ Like it's some unexpected celebrity romance, and something else better will crop up soon enough. Like it's not some hideous reciprocal to the Jurassic Park scandal of nearly twenty years ago.

But Karen nods, anyway. She looks at her sister for the first time.

"How you holding up, Claire?"

Claire shakes her head, suddenly looking _bitter._ "Don't be nice to me. I don't deserve it."

Karen looks as if she's about to start to say something, and then looks slightly desperately to Owen, something of a pleading glance in her eyes.

"We're doing alright." Owen breathes, and Claire bristles, and for a moment he thinks he's thrown it all away, he thinks he's taken one step too far, too soon, but then she takes a deep breath.

Moments later, he feels her cold hand in his.

* * *

That night, he looks as if he's planning on settling on the hotel room couch, and she laughs. He looks up, abruptly, from where he was laying his blanket. It's such an alien sound he wasn't expecting.

There's a tiny smile on her lips, but there's that disapproving look behind her eyes, slightly reminiscent of when he wore board shorts.

"We're really going to have this conversation?" she asks, frowning slightly.

For all his charm, for all his confidence, Owen Grady starts bumbling. "I… I didn't want to assume anything… I… last night… we'd a had a difficult day and-"

That gives him another laugh, because 'a difficult day' is the biggest understatement of the century, and she steps towards him, suddenly looking at her feet, and if he wasn't certain Claire Dearing _did not_ blush, he'd be certain there was a pink tinge to her cheeks. She looks up at him, and the honesty in her eyes takes his breath away, if only for a moment.

"I thought we were sticking together. For survival." She breathes, and she looks so vulnerable, and she's asking him so much without asking him anything at all. He leans forward and kisses her.

It's gentle, it's nothing like either straight after the shooting of a pteranodon or the night before, and she loops her arms around his neck, the smile not leaving her lips. He considers that a victory – if she's smiling, after everything, he must be doing something right.

"Come to bed." She breathes, and he doesn't need asking twice.

It's a lot slower, that night, a lot gentler. He presses light gentle kisses against every inch of her he can get his mouth on, and she finds herself almost sobbing into his shoulder as he finally enters her, out of finality, desperation and something of utter _hopelessness._ Her hips buck weakly towards him, the exhaustion beginning to show, but she holds and lets him push forward, tantalisingly _slowly,_ and despite not thinking she has it in her, not tonight, he has her screaming.

He lets her finish and whimper slightly against his skin before he comes crashing down around her, and then they lay, breathless, in one another's arms.

He goes to start to roll back to his side of the bed, but she catches his arm.

"Hold me." She breathes, and he pulls her against him and buries his face in her hair.

They sleep like that, however fitfully.

* * *

They live on slightly mediocre room service and late night visits to a deserted hotel bar for the next week or so. One attempt to go outside – Claire attempted to go a few doors down to buy some clothes from a local store – resulted in press hounding her from a few feet outside the hotel lobby. She rushed back into the cheap and cheerful hotel they were staying in, and sent Owen for some clothes for both of them the following day. Despite everything, he was still more capable of going incognito.

She didn't even comment on his bland, safe choices of black and grey pants and shirts – that echoes change more than he'll ever know.

So they survive in near enough solitary confinement, occasionally mixing with Karen, Scott and the boys. Zach and Gray have become inconceivably closer since the event; there's nothing like coming face to face with a deadly predator to bring out the protective streak in an older brother. They spend a lot of time with Claire and Owen, and she thinks Zach and Owen have written their own seemingly wordless language – they hardly talk, but Owen seems to be the only person other than Gray he's interested in spending any time around. He seems to have less time for his parents, and particularly their still-existent quarrels, than he did when he was a grumpy, rebellious teenager – because one of the biggest changes she's noticed since 'the incident' is how suddenly Zach seemed to have grown up.

It almost breaks her heart – she never saw him enough in his childhood, and she took it away from him, however indirectly.

* * *

A week and a half down the line, a week and a half _since,_ Karen and Scott decide they can agree on one thing – they're taking Zach and Gray home. Claire doesn't have that option – she's been told, in no fewer words, that she needs to stay close and easy access awaiting the start of the legal case by the Masrani Global officials and lawyers.

But she decides that maybe she should look and see if there is a suite at a nicer hotel. Owen gets out of the shower and finds her flicking through two hotel brochures, the only hotels with any available space in a Costa Rican town still packed with worried relatives, grieving relatives and close survivors.

"Where we going, then?" he laughs, rubbing his head absent-mindedly with a towel.

She looks up at him, "Oh you don't have to-"

His eyes flash. "I'll pay, Claire. Raptor trainer left me with quite a decent bank account, once I can get my hands on it…"

She shakes her head, looking slightly outraged. "No, it's not that! I just meant… people are getting away now, and I'll be alright on my own, don't feel you need to look after me… you don't really have anything holding you here."

Somewhat in shock, he sinks onto the edge of the bed. When he speaks, he doesn't raise his voice, but there's an anger in his tone she's never heard before.

"I don't really have anything holding me here?" he spits, and looks away from her. "What have I been, then, something warming the other side of the bed whilst you were stuck in this hotel?"

She bites her lip, realising how she sounded. "I didn't mean… I just thought-"

"Well you thought wrong, Claire." There's still acid in his tone. "I don't think you need me here. You're a big girl, you're perfectly capable of looking after yourself. I… I was hoping you _wanted_ me here."

"I do."

He scoffs. "It doesn't sound like it."

She sighs, and spins on the chair to face him, her toes almost touching his. "I'm sorry. I just meant… I don't want to hold you here, if you wanted to escape for a while… I'd love to get away, if I could…"

He turns his eyes back to hers, and he reaches out, takes her hand.

"I want you to want to hold me here. I want you to understand… you're the only thing holding me anywhere, now. I might need you to hold me here." His voice is quiet, so much behind his eyes. She strokes a finger over his hand.

"I want you here, then." She gives him a little smile. "For survival, right?"

 **So it looks like this turned into two parts… Expect the other half in a few days! Hope you've enjoyed, would love to hear what you think!**


	2. II

**Thanks for your feedback so far! Hope you enjoy this chapter!**

 **Part II**

The case escalates only about a day after they've checked into their new and significantly roomier suite in the penthouse of a more remote hotel in the town. It throws Claire straight into weeks of smart white skirt suits again, and sometimes when she looks in the mirror she wonders, really, if she's still in another life, the incident was just some sort of horrible nightmare, and everything that's happened since has been some sort of twisted dream, turning, ever so slowly, beautiful.

The press has calmed down in the area, though they're still careful, but they feel a little less trapped than before. They can eat in the hotel restaurant without being disturbed, and there's a little kitchenette in the penthouse suite they use when after a long day, they'd rather stay in their pyjamas, and eat curled up together against the pillows.

Because Owen's keeping busy, too. He's taken to fishing with a few local men (who couldn't give a shit about Jurassic World, and what it came to – their old village shaman had told them from the start it was all going to end in bloodshed). After the initial blip of having a sudden and horrible flashback to the mosasaur when getting his first heavy catch, he takes to the silence and the hard work well, and likes spending the day in solitude in the sun, rather than in the confines of their hotel.

Claire sits in front of dozens of press conferences, a number of courtrooms, and with a seemingly endless supply of lawyers. But in the end, they get there, and Masrani Global's compensating an almost incomprehensible number of people, and in all the legal proceedings, and the official statements that have been given to the press, she's not responsible.

It doesn't make her feel any less guilty.

* * *

She gets back into their suite that evening, ready to tell Owen she's served her last official statement as an employee of Masrani Global, and she's free to leave whenever she sees fit, but when she gets there, he's on the phone.

She checks her watch – it's the time he's taken to speaking to Zach at almost every other day, and she doesn't question it. The first few times he asked if her nephew wanted to speak to his aunt, and Zach came up with some sort of petty excuse, so she asked Owen to stop offering. She's not sure what they talk about, and she's not sure she's in a position to ask, so she never does.

Today's different.

"Yeah, she's just got in actually." She hears Owen say, and rolls her eyes slightly at his continued futile attempts to mend bridges between her and her nephew Zach clearly doesn't want to rebuild right now. "Of course, Zach… hang on, mate…" And he pushes the phone at her, giving her something of a reassuring smile, but with something else behind his eyes.

Tentatively, she puts the phone to her ear.

"Zach?"

"Aunt Claire?" if she didn't know better, she'd think she could hear tears in her nephew's voice.

"I'm here. What's wrong?"

"Dad's left. Like actually left, he's going to work in Seattle for a month, and he told Mom to have his stuff packed so he can pick it up and move straight out when he gets back… and Gray's locked himself in the upstairs bathroom and won't stop crying, and Mom's just sat at the kitchen table, staring at a mug of cold coffee, and she won't move, not even when I speak to her, and-"

"Zach. Breathe."

"But I think I'm the only sane person left in the house, and I-"

"Zach. Make your mom a warm cup of coffee. Get Gray out of the bathroom somehow – if you have to tell him there's a house fire, you have to tell him there's a house fire… Get him out, give him a huge hug and promise him you're not going anywhere. And then find him something sweet in the kitchen, or make him a PB&J sandwich if you can't find anything better…"

"Aunt Claire? I think Mom might need you. I don't know what to say…"

She can't help the slightly swelling of pride as she realises Zach still thinks she's useful for something. "We'll get the next flight, we'll be out by this time tomorrow, latest, ok? Can you make us up a room, if you can't get your Mom to do it?"

"Thanks, Aunt Claire."

She bites her lip slightly. "Don't mention it. It's the least I can do. We'll see you soon."

"See you soon."

She stares at the phone for minutes after she's hung up. She knew this was coming, Karen and Scott, but she'd hoped maybe the shock of the Jurassic World incident and coming so close to losing both their boys would have brought them tumbling back together. Apparently not.

Owen steps out of the bathroom.

"We're going to Wisconsin." She announces, and he steps towards her. "As soon as possible. Karen needs me, and after everything…" he places a hand softly on the side of her face. "Pack. We'll get the first flight we can."

* * *

Somehow, they don't get spotted at the airport. It's the first time Claire really starts thinking it's possible that this will all blow over. It's possible that one day she won't be the woman who contributed to so many deaths, the woman who didn't appreciate the killing machine she was running.

Owen snoozes with his hand in hers on the plane, and she takes a moment to consider that of everything that's come from all this, there's one thing that's good. Until these weeks, she couldn't remember a time when she didn't feel completely alone – and that was alright, she'd conditioned herself from a very young age to be able to survive, and thrive, on her own, but it was a hell of a lot nicer to have a face to, essentially, come home to.

General Mitchell International Airport is another story, however, though not in the way she expects. They're checking through security, and the girl – she doesn't look hardly old enough to be working, Claire suspects it's her first day - looking through Claire's handbag takes a step back, something of shock on her face.

"Oh my God." She claps a hand to her mouth, and Claire braces herself. Owen places a hand on her shoulder, as if to steady her. "This is amazing. You're… you're the one that saved everyone, getting chased by that dinosaur, aren't you?"

She doesn't know how to react to that. The girl starts gabbling, not dissimilar to a fan meeting a celebrity. "This is… wow. I've got so many people to tell… ooh, hang on a second, could I have a selfie?"

That's how Claire ends up taking a slightly shocked picture in General Mitchell International Airport, and discovers she has something of a fan base.

Owen sulks the whole way to Karen's in the taxi for not being recognised.

* * *

She knocks on her sister's door, her heart suddenly thumping. No matter what's happened, no matter why she's there, no matter how frequently Karen insisted the whole thing wasn't Claire's fault, it still feels like it.

Owen puts his hand in hers, but she brushes it off. Her sister, headfirst in a broken marriage, doesn't need to see how _happy_ Claire is, with the man she least expected. She smiles a little to herself as she realises that. She's happy, with Owen Grady. Who'd ever have thought it?

She manages to pull the smile into check when the door opens, but it's Zach anyway. He heaves a huge sigh of relief as he sees them, and wraps his arms straight around his aunt, sending her staggering slightly, Owen's hand steadying her on the base of her spine.

"Thanks for coming, Aunt Claire." He whispers, whilst still hugging her. "I haven't been able to talk to her, I haven't been able to do hardly anything…"

She presses her face into the top of his head for maybe too long – she'd thought she had a completely broken relationship with this boy, and here he is, burying his face in her shoulder like he never got a chance to do when he was a kid.

When he pulls back, Owen pulls her nephew into far more of a guy hug, but a hug all the same, and it's almost visible, the weight off Zach's shoulders, the responsibility halved.

They follow him through.

* * *

Karen's sat at the kitchen table, not unlike Zach described her on the phone, but Claire can see from the steam that she's either recently made the coffee or her son's made her a fresh one. She looks up as Claire walks into the room, and when she sees Owen behind her, she bursts into tears.

Owen, looking slightly shocked, turns to Zach behind.

"Gray in?" he breathes. Zach nods towards the stairs. "You think he'd like to come for a walk with us?"

Claire sends him grateful eyes as she sits beside her sister, letting her bury her head in her lap, sobs shaking her body. When she hears the front door slam and everyone leaving the house, she lifts Karen up, forcing her to look at her.

For a moment there's silence. Then, in a tiny, shaky voice, Karen speaks. "He really did it, Claire bear. He really left."

She takes her sister's hand. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not even that sorry… I knew it was coming, everything was getting worse… I just… I guess I thought everything would get better, it wouldn't end…"

Claire doesn't have anything to say to that. She lets Karen cry into her shoulder.

"I can't explain to the boys. I can't… they blame me…"

"Zach's worried about you, Karen. That's why he called me, he needed help. And Gray's really struggling, he's only a kid… he needs you to show him he's going to get through this…"

Karen hangs her head. "I know. They've been through enough, they need support…. I just…. I can't remember what it's like to manage on my own, and I've certainly never managed two kids on my own…"  
Claire gives a slightly half-hearted smile, remembering how jealous she'd been when Karen had married her high school boyfriend and she'd still been furiously, eternally single. How the tables have turned.

"I know a lot about managing on your own. And anyway, you're not on your own. Owen and I are here to stay however long you want us too, and after that you've got the boys… and they're kind of great, your boys…"

Karen gives her a weak half smile. "Thanks for coming, Claire." She whispers, "You've got enough problems, you don't need my rotten marriage, I-"

"I think I need problems like your marriage right now, Karen… I'm alright, and everything with Masrani Global's closed, and Owen's still here, and that's wonderful… but sometimes I worry if I don't have enough to think about, if I start thinking about what happened…"

And Karen squeezes her sister's hand, and they lean against each other.

 **So it became like at least four parts… apparently I have A LOT to say! Would love to hear what you think about this part, in a little review, however short :)**


	3. III

**Thanks for all your feedback, here's the next part! Hope you enjoy :)**

 **Part III**

Things start perking up, after that. Karen pulls herself together in that moment, and by the time Owen and the boys get back from their walk, she's put something on for dinner. Claire and Owen set themselves up in the spare bedroom, and get a precious moment of quiet between walls.

"How's Karen?" he asks, brow furrowed.

"Struggling. But she'll cope… it's just… it's been so long, she doesn't remember what it's like to be on her own, no matter how long she hasn't really been with Scott… they got together when she was a freshman, you know that? She's never been with anyone else."

Owen gives her a small smile. "A huge change, then. And how about you? Did you have any inappropriate college boyfriends that lead you astray?"

She shakes her head, laughing, dryly. "Nope. None. I didn't have my first boyfriend until I was 23 years old, just out of college."

He raises an eyebrows slightly. "You probably had the men scared, even then… and I didn't think the high school quarterbacks could get scared…"

"Thank you for coming." She breathes. "You didn't have to. You were turning into quite the fisherman."

Owen shakes his head, wondering if she'll ever quite understand. "I was a fisherman in Costa Rica, when you needed to be there for Masrani Global. I was a hideout partner in that God-awful hotel we stayed in the first few weeks, when you needed to stay behind closed doors… I'll be whatever I can find to be in Wisconsin for however long you need to be here… I'm sticking with you, Claire."

"For survival." She breathes, and his eyes dart down to her lips, his pupils blown, before Karen calls them down to dinner. He swallows, thinks hard about old people naked and follows her down the stairs.

* * *

A couple of weeks into their stay with Karen and the boys, Claire starts getting them. Job offers, from various different corporations, huge companies, and one far too hopeful theme park, all across the US. The first one she receives, an email from one of the largest shopping complexes in Colorado, offering her top priority in the interview process for assistant CEO, she stares at the screen in silence for an indefinite amount of time, until Owen comes back into their room. He looks at her face, paler white than usual, and then takes the laptop from her, reads the email, and sets it to the side.

"You're freaking out." He breathes, putting one hand on her side, and cupping her cheek with the other, stroking his thumb across her cheek. When she looks at him, there are tears in her eyes.

"There's a life afterwards." She half whispers, pressing her lips against his wrist. "There's people that know exactly who I am and still want to hire me, I… we don't have to be always stuck in the after-Jurassic World place we're in right now. One day it's just going to be a thing that happened to us, once…"

"And so many other things are going to happen to us." He finishes, and presses his lips against hers. She closes her eyes, and smiles. It sure as hell sounds like he's promising her something not dissimilar to forever.

After the first one, they keep coming. But Claire keeps ignoring them, for now. Right now, it's about Karen, and everything she needs Claire to be.

And she's not sure she's quite ready to start the 'life afterwards'.

* * *

It's Gray she's the most worried about. He still has nightmares, though if you try to ask him about, he denies screaming in the night. Zach gives her almost sharp eyes and mutters that he'll handle it, and though Karen's managing so much better now, she knows her sister doesn't have any idea how to broach the subject of 'the incident'.

After she's been split from Scott almost two months, the divorce lawyer contacts Karen, and surprisingly, she hangs up the phone, a small, slightly bitter smile on her face. When she asks Claire if she and Owen could stay in with the boys tonight whilst she goes out for a drink with some friends, Claire's heart swells.

They sit down in front of a movie – Ironman 3, or something like that, Claire's paying very little attention – suddenly she realises this is her opportunity to let Gray know he's not the only one struggling. She muses on that throughout the film.

When the film finishes and they get up to go to bed, Zach's out of the room before they can hardly even breathe – there's a girl in his Economics class he's been messaging like crazy this past week or so – and Claire seizes the moment.

"I hope I can sleep tonight." She sighs, as if to Owen, but loud enough for Gray, who's yawning from his almost-asleep state on the couch, to hear. "Sometimes the nightmares keep me up."

Owen frowns slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if doubting Claire's strategy. But after moments of silence, there's a tiny voice from the couch.

"You still dream about it too?"

* * *

They take a walk one evening after they've been living with Karen nearly three months, and neither of them expect the rain. But once it starts, it starts pelting, and Claire starts running in the direction of Karen's road – cupping her hands over her head as if to protect her hair.

Owen can't help laughing – it's futile, they're about a half hour walk away from Karen's road, and the heavens have opened. She spins, eyes flashing.

"What's funny?" It's raining so hard her hair's already beyond help.

"You." He smiles, taking a step towards her. Is that the ghost of a smile on her lips? "You're going to run all the way home in those shoes?"

She looks up at him through hooded eyes, the echo of a memory of running somewhere quite different in three and a half inch heels dancing between them, but neither of them mention it. She takes her hands down from above her head and steps back in his direction. She loops her arms around his neck, a definite smile on her face now.

"I was going to try." She laughs slightly, and looks up into the rain. "This is going to ruin my hair."

He presses his lips against hers; briefly, but full of promise. The kind of kiss that catches your breath and leaves you gasping for something more.

"I think you're probably not going to make it back before there's some damage done." He chuckles.

"Well, I'm not now." She pouts slightly, indignant.

"God, I love you." He breathes, and Claire's sure her heart stops for a moment. She looks down, abashed, but he tilts her chin up so her eyes can't miss his. She bites her lip. "All of you, everything you do that drives me crazy… running ridiculous places in ridiculous shoes… and your stupid idea that it even matters what your hair looks like. I love you with wet hair. Hell, I'd love you with no hair."

Her heart feels genuinely like it's swelling in her chest, and she's never felt like that before.

There's something almost _worried_ in his eyes then, searching hers, waiting for a response. She almost laughs when she realises he could even consider any other response.

"I love you too." She breathes, so quietly he can't be sure he heard anything at all, "And since we've cleared that up, I was thinking we should think about where we're going, now. We can't stay living with Karen forever – she needs to get used to living on her own with the boys – I need to apply to one of those jobs, I'll go mad not working forever, we should probably look into buying a place near wherever we both end up working, and I-"

Owen cuts her off with a deep belly laugh, and cups a hand round the side of her face. "I even love that about you. That you can turn a guy pouring his heart out to you into the minutes for a meeting, and that I'm pretty sure you just suggested in the most decidedly unromantic way that we move in together – you know, properly-"

She frowns slightly. "Don't you think that would be a good idea, then? I mean, sure, if you want to work somewhere other than one of those places I've been offered, and we'll manage long distance, or you think it would be too soon, I-"

"I'll follow you anywhere, Claire. You should know that by now. I'm going wherever you're going."

She can't conceal the little smile that turns up the corner of her mouth. "Wherever we're going, we go together then. You should decide what you want to do, and we can look at the opportunities for you near those job offers – we'll have to find somewhere for that life afterwards I found so scary..."

"Not so scary anymore?"

She looks up at him, a tiny smile on her lips, and tilts her forehead against his, in the still pouring rain. "Suddenly it seems quite exciting. Suddenly I want to be part of it."

 **So it turns out three parts weren't nearly enough… I** _ **think**_ **the next one will be the last, but until I finish with the tweaking/final details I can't promise anything.**

 **Be patient awaiting my next update, I'm currently taking some exams and I'm writing in my spare time/on little revision breaks, so it might be a little longer than the first 3 chapters!**

 **Thanks for reviewing :)!**


	4. IV

**Next part. Sorry for the wait, and please keep being patient. Hope you enjoy it!**

 **Part IV**

She starts to look over the job offers the following day, but nothing seems to _click._ She doesn't want to be somewhere quite as huge as Jurassic World, and despite how far she's come, she doesn't want to be somewhere where she risks the judging eye of the general public again. She doesn't think she'll ever feel ready to have that much responsibility on her shoulders. On a really bad day, she doesn't feel like anyone should trust her with their life again.

Owen tries to help, for a while, in the quiet in their bedroom in the evening, as Claire's not ready to tell Karen yet, and she supposes she doesn't need to until it's anything more than a dream. Because it's become a dream, really, this future that she's suddenly mapping out in front of her. This future, where she's someone other than that-woman-from-Jurassic-World-who-ran-away-from-a-dinosaur. This future, with Owen Grady. Owen Grady, who tries to help her narrow down her choices for which job to take, but her particularly grouchy reactions to any suggestion he has teach him quickly that this is something it's not worth getting involved in.

One night, when he's gone to an ice hockey match with boys, and Karen's had an early night, she stumbles across an email that's ended up in her junk file.

She starts scanning through the text, not expecting it to feel like it weighs anything in value. Something catches her eye. A brand new company, a healthy lifestyle company, beside the beaches in LA. To manage something from the very start, that sounds inviting.

And Owen always liked the sun.

* * *

She contemplates for a few days – after drafting the email accepting the position – whether to send it before telling Owen, or vice versa. She knows she should talk to him about it first; he'd promised to go wherever she was going, hadn't he?, but there's still some fear inside her somewhere that drives her towards independence, which has always been her safety blanket. She doesn't know if she's ready to become part of a team, not properly. She's been Claire Dearing, the only person who looks out for Claire Dearing, for as long as she can remember.

One night, everyone takes an early night, and as they sink into the mattress, both exhausted, both ready for nothing other than sleep, Owen folds his arms around her, as has become _normal._ And Claire's lips fall into a little half smile, as she realises she never wants this normal to become alien again. She turns in his arms and presses her lips against his, lightly and roughly at the same time.

"You alright?" he breathes, and she's astounded at his ability to read the tiniest nuances.

She sighs slightly. "I think I decided which job to take. There's a company… it's a new company, a healthy living company, personal trainers, health foods, spas, shrinks if needed… and they want me to front it. They want me to build it. I could do something like that, I could build something from someone's idea, couldn't I?"

She thinks his lips tilt into a smile against her skin. He's half asleep, already.

"Where we going then?" he murmurs, and her heart leaps a little. She can't be reminded enough times that he's coming with her. This is not necessarily ever going to end.

* * *

When Owen takes the boys to a Green Bay Packers game one evening, she takes the opportunity to gauge Karen's reaction. She pours two big glasses of wine, and sinks into the couch next to her sister. Karen's got a worried expression.

"There's only one reason you pour me that much wine, Claire. What have you got to tell me? If you hadn't perhaps poured yourself a larger glass of wine, I'd think you were about to tell me you and Owen were pregnant-"

Claire half spits out the first sip of wine. Despite everything, that's still such a ridiculous concept right now, it's almost laughable.

"No." she splutters, shaking her head furiously. "But it does involve Owen, I-"

"He's asked you to marry him?"

"Karen. Let me finish. It's altogether more practical than anything you're coming up with."

Her sister laughs. "Trust me, there are a lot of practicalities in childbirth…"

"Karen!"

"Sorry, I'm listening." Her sister looks down, a little sheepish, but Claire hasn't seen a smile like that on her face ever since Scott left, so the corner of her mouth turns up.

"I've found a job. It's at the helm of a new company, a healthy lifestyle company with lots of different factors, and possibility for expansion… it's really quite exciting, I-"

"Wow. I haven't heard you sound that enthusiastic about something since I told you Nana Pat would pay you to clean her car…"

"Karen, it's in LA."

There's a silence as Karen processes that piece of information, and Claire watches her sister, suddenly realising how much she wants this job, when the possibility of it could be torn away.

When Karen doesn't say anything, just stares at her hands, Claire speaks. "If I take this job, Owen and I are going to move to LA. But you should know… you just have to say if it's too soon, if you still want me here…"

Her sister looks up at her. "No… I think I'm OK with that. I think I'm ready to be just me and the boys. You should go to LA, and take that job… I bet you make that company multi-million dollar before the five year mark."

Claire smiles, and takes Karen's hand.

* * *

Telling the boys is easier than they'd both expected. Gray looks a little downtrodden for a moment, but he's been doing so much better lately – Claire's pretty sure he hasn't been up in the night in nearly a month – and when Zach whispers something to him, his face lights up.

"Does this mean we'll be coming to LA on spring break every year?"

And then it's the practicalities that start getting in the way. There's the big problem of a house, or an apartment, to start with. Owen wants to live on the beach, Claire wants a high rise apartment with a fantastic view (she was always a penthouse suite girl) and Karen keeps making suggestive eyes at Claire behind Owen's back talking about 'extra bedrooms'. And of course there's price of properties, and _pride,_ and although raptor trainer didn't pay badly and they've had this conversation once before, it stresses Owen out, and he closes up, cages the underlying feeling of inadequacy in. Whenever Claire tries to talk to him about it, he gets defensive, and they end up falling asleep with their backs to one another.

Neither of them sleep well like that.

One Saturday morning, after falling asleep on ' _I really don't want to talk about it, Claire'_ and ' _You never want to talk about it, that's the problem'_ Claire wakes to sunlight shining through the curtains and rough, dry lips against her cheekbone. He places his lips on hers as her eyes flicker open, and it's soft and apologetic and stubborn all at once.

"I realise Operations Manager earnt a whole lot more than raptor trainer, but we should… we should find somewhere we can split, half and half. I need to feel like we're both in this equally, Claire, and I-"

She presses a finger against his lips, and suddenly he notices tears in her eyes. "I… could we use one other thing?"

He frowns, questioning.

"I… I got a bonus on my last paycheck, from the prebookings for the… for the Indominus…" she almost shudders, it's still a difficult word to even say. "I… I didn't think I'd ever be able to touch it… it feels like blood money… but if we could…"

He's silent for a moment, but then he starts nodding, slowly. "Lives ended." He breathes, and she closes her eyes for a second, wincing. "But if we could start a life with that money… I think I would be okay with that…"

* * *

In the end, they find a house just on the edge of the beach, surprisingly. But it has decking out the back and a beautiful view of the cove, and four bedrooms. So everyone's happy. They set a date to move, a few days before Claire is due to start work, and just as she's about the broach the subject with Owen of what he's going to look into doing – she'd considered, and Karen had suggested working in a zoo, but she supposes the raptors' hypothetical shoes are impossible to fill, and it should be altogether different – he drops a bombshell that reinforces everything she's spent the last months learning; she's not sure who she is anymore without Owen Grady by her side.

"So the Navy contacted me." He announces, sat on the edge of their bed, staring slightly blankly out the window.

Her stomach feels like it drops at least four feet, and she freezes. A thousand things are whirling round her mind at once, but at the same time she _can't think._ Because surely that can only mean one thing. Memories flood her for a second, moments before watching him come out of the elevator into the control room in Jurassic World, moments believing he was dead.

And she wasn't even admitting to herself she could _tolerate_ him yet, then, let alone…

She sits on the mattress next to him, her eyes finding their own spot out the window. She swallows, willing words to come out of her mouth, but nothing does.

There's silence, an impasse, a few deep breaths.

"Claire, why are you crying?" he's turned to look at her, and she hadn't even realised there were tears rolling down her cheeks. She turns her head to him, but looking at his eyes tightens the knot in her stomach, and she looks out the window again.

"I'm not sure I know how to let you go." She breathes, taking his hand. "I cannot lose you."

Arms wrap around her, he buries his face against her hair, and then his shoulders shake with a laugh. She pulls back, anger and hurt and confusion in her eyes all at once.

He looks a little sheepish. "I'm sorry." He breathes, stroking his thumb across the back of her hand. "I love you, I'm sorry, I just – I'm not going anywhere."

She can breathe again, and that's always a good thing. But she's still mad. "You turned them down, then? Can you do that?"

He smiles, and cups her cheek with his hand. "They offered me something completely different. There's a teaching job in a military school in California, half an hour away from our house… teaching 11 year old boys gym. I could do that."

She leans her forehead against his, closing her eyes. "I meant what I said." She whispers, tightening her hand in his. "I don't think I'm ever going to let you go."

Lips burn against hers, and all of a sudden hands are everywhere, scalding. He hasn't been this rough since the first few days in a budget hotel in Costa Rica, but as he pushes her against the pillows, hands pushing her jeans down over her hips, something coils tight inside her, and she realises she's been missing it. His mouth starts to travel down her neck, and she's working his belt buckle, suddenly desperate.

Suddenly, it's not just that she can't lose him, it's that she needs him, right here, right now, with all that raw energy and desperation and _passion_ she fell in love with. He plunges into her with little preparation, but she's suddenly so desperate and therefore so wet she gasps from purely pleasure.

The only difference that night to the anguish in the early days is whispers of _'I love you, I'm never leaving, we're holding on…'_ against her skin as he comes right after her.

She catches her breath, and considers forever.

 **So four parts weren't nearly enough… there doesn't seem to be an end in sight at the moment, you'll be pleased to hear!**

 **Thanks again for your lovely reviewing, keep it up please :)**


	5. V

**I give up on estimating how many parts you're going to get, now… hope that keeps everyone happy!**

 **Part V**

She sets an espresso on the bedside table next to him, and presses her lips against his forehead.

"Morning." She breathes, sitting on the side of the bed as his eyes flicker open. "You'd better get up and shower. It's your first day."

They've only been in the house almost a week, and Claire's only worked two days as yet, but this morning's about Owen. She knows how much of a shock to the system it was for her, stepping back into the business suits but into a completely different position, with priorities like customer happiness, hiring personal trainers and the latest fad diet, rather than thick enough glass for safety barriers, the tyrannosaurus feed time public attraction, and scaring the kids. And she imagines it's going to be worse for Owen. It's going to be that much more different. She presses her lips to his and pulls the sheets right off him.

"Get in the shower. I'm making breakfast."

As he skulks out of bed with a yawn and heavy lidded eyes, he starts considering methods of getting Claire to decide to make breakfast more often. It's kinda sexy.

* * *

It's even sexier when he steps into the kitchen, wearing nothing but his Navy pants, for now, and Claire's flipping a pancake in a white business suit and _those heels_. He smiles as she puts the plate in front of him seconds after he's sat down, to another steaming coffee and a glass of juice.

He tries to think about pancakes and teaching 12 year old boys basketball, not her _fuck-me_ shoes.

"Nervous?" she asks, casually, between mouthfuls of pancakes.

"Not so much. Excited, really."

"I thought you'd be nervous."

Owen raises an eyebrow. "Why? You think I should be?"

She gives him a little smile. "No… I just… they're infamously very difficult to work with, teenage boys, and you've never worked with them before…"

Owen chuckles, and cups his hand over hers on the table for a second. "I worked with dinosaurs, Claire. How hard can it be?"

* * *

Owen turns the tables when he walks back down into the kitchen, ready to leave, just as Claire is finishing loading the dishwasher. She glances and then has to double take – he's in his full naval uniform, all the crisp white, with all the gold buttons and badges of honour…

If she was the sort of girl whose knees gave way, she would be on the floor. She swallows; she should have left for work five minutes ago, and the uniform should not be having that much of an effect on her. She's seen him without anything on countless times, for heaven's sake.

He's not one to miss a trick, however, and he notices her eyes as she looks away quickly, the sudden slight flush to her cheeks. He walks up behind her, where she's leaning on the kitchen counter, suddenly very animatedly looking through some paperwork. In reality, the sheets of paper in front of her could be decorated with writing in Mandarin. She can't even _think_ in that moment, let alone read.

He puts his hands lightly on her hips, and presses a light but frankly _scalding_ kiss to the side of her neck. He hears her breath hitch.

"You should get to work." He practically growls, against her neck, "If you're good, I'll wear the uniform this evening."

She spins, and there's resentment flashing with desire in her eyes. He presses his lips against hers, quickly, roughly, enough to leave her panting, and then he's out of the front door before she can protest.

The door slamming behind him, she catches her breath. She was **not** expecting that.

* * *

He fits right in, right away, in the academy. There's something not so dissimilar to reading the behaviour of the raptors, being at the head of a class of pre-teenage boys for the first time. He's found a number of alphas in the morning, and by the afternoon he's got an idea of which alphas are there due to well-earned respect, and which alphas are otherwise bullies. He can read a class of kids like he can read a pack of animals, the behaviour patterns are not all that different.

And he instinctively finds the ones that could maybe use a gym teacher more in touch with their behaviour patterns. Quiet boys who're last to be picked for a team, wayward boys who've clearly got something else on their minds, and boys who'd definitely be better suited to running track – they need something to help let out the energy, but they're _not quite there yet_ when it comes to working with a team, they're not pack animals.

He finds it fascinating, rewarding and exhausting all at the same time, and stays in looking through student profiles and the school records to try and get a gauge on his more difficult students until quite late that evening. When he finally pulls onto their driveway, Claire's car is already there. He goes into the kitchen, and is greeted by a call of "I'm upstairs, I'll be down in a moment!" as he pours himself a quick coffee from the machine.

Then he climbs the stairs two at a time, finally allowing himself to think on the morning.

* * *

Claire's just got out of the shower, and is towel drying her hair, clothed solely in another long white towel. She doesn't try to hide the slight flicker in her eyes as she sees him in his uniform in the doorway.

"Good day, Owen?"

"Brilliant, actually." He watches her turn her attention back to the mirror, but he won't let this moment escape them. And she's wearing nothing but a towel, he's got to take advantage of that. His voice seems slightly deeper, with the hint of a growl when he next speaks. "And that's Lieutenant Grady to you."

She spins to him, eyes wide and dark, one hand gripping the edge of the dressing table as if clinging on to something for dear life. "Lieu… Lieutenant Grady?"

He takes a few steps towards her, watching her trembling increase as he gets closer. "Lieutenant Grady."

Conversation's overrated, she decides, as he forces his lips against hers and tangles one hand into her damp hair, backing her against the dressing table, her towel falling to the floor. There's so much pale, beautiful, bare skin on show, then, he can feel his reaction. And so, apparently, can she. Her fingers come to the zipper of his Navy pants, a hand snakes into his underwear, gripping him suddenly. He starts trailing his mouth down her neck, and lifts her, sitting her on the edge of the dressing table. He takes a nipple in his mouth as he finds the other with his fingers, and she stills her fingers on him for a second to push his pants and boxers around his ankles.

She gives some sort of moan, and he slides his fingers between her legs, swearing against her breast at how wet she is.

"It's the uniform." She murmurs, into his hair, and starts bucking her hips against him. She gives a whimper as he steps back, withdrawing his fingers. Then, when he reaches to start undoing his uniform shirt, she grabs his hands to still them, pupils blown further, if that's possible.

"Keep it on." She whispers breathily, pulling him closer.

He smiles as his lips meet hers. "Only if…" he gasps as her hands find his buttocks, drawing him closer still, lining his shaft up with her entrance. "Next time… I get you in those shoes… and nothing else."

She screams her consent as he thrusts into her, and he's not sure if it's to screwing him in just her heels, or to the action itself, but now isn't a time for thinking. He bites down on her shoulder as he moves, slowly.

"Faster." She hisses, leaning her head back, making a slight _chink_ as it connects with the mirror.

He looks up at her, mischief in his eyes. "You need to-" a painfully slow thrust, "-address me properly."

There's that same friendly, needy resent in her eyes there was this morning.

"Lieutenant Grady." She breathes, bucking her hips futilely against him. "Fuck me."

He doesn't need asking twice.

* * *

When she finally curls into his side between the Egyptian cotton sheets, she curls her fingers on his chest, the uniform shirt having found its way to the floor despite everything. He presses his lips against her forehead, heaving an exhausted sigh. Claire looks up at the bedside clock, and then props herself up on her elbows.

"It's only 7.30." she chuckles, leaning on his chest. "I was going to make you dinner." She goes to move, as if to get out of bed, and he wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her back to him.

"How about we stay here a bit… order a pizza later?"

She frowns at him, a giggle on her lips. "I'm the new face of a healthy living brand, I can't be seen getting a takeout pizza…"

He smiles. "I'll put it on my card. You know you love them really."

She sighs, but doesn't deny it, wrapping herself around his side again.

"So… how was today, Lieutenant Grady?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Don't do that to me, woman, not after all that… you've exhausted me."

She flushes slightly. "I could get you going all over again, you know I could."

He closes his eyes, sighing. "You could, admittedly, but I'd have thought you'd be a little tired after that…"

She shrugs, and buries her head in the crook of his neck. "I suppose. I was just gonna burn off that pizza…"

He frowns, chuckling. "You, Miss Dearing, want a relationship built entirely on sex, and that is neither sensible nor healthy."

She laughs, but settles against him, pressing her lips lightly to his skin. "So, how was your first day?"

She feels him smile. "Great. You know, they're not all that different to the girls, really… you've just got to know how to read them."

Claire snorts. "You should **not** tell the parents when it comes to parents' evening that their sons remind you of velociraptors…"

* * *

Over a Hawaiian pizza much, much later, Claire is impressed by how enthusiastic Owen sounds about the new job. With a tiny jolt, she realises she hasn't heard him talk this animatedly about something since he worked with the girls, and she supposes that's what maybe getting past something looks like. With another little smile, she considers she might be somewhere near that point, too. She's only been working with _Freshlife_ three days, but she's already constructing plans, planning meetings, thinking about _expansion,_ and she supposes that's growth in her own way. Because there had been a time she had suspected setting herself to anything would never be possible again. That the formidable, cut-throat, corporate Claire Dearing was a thing of the past.

Turns out she was wrong.

Owen looks up from the pizza box, eyes hopeful; there's one last slice that won't be his with equal sharing. When he notices her face, however, he stops for a moment. She looks absolutely, completely and _beautifully_ happy, and that's something precious, in that moment.

"The pizza that good, huh?"

She looks down, almost as if ashamed. When she looks back up at him her eyes are slightly wet, but there's a huge smile still lingering on her face. "No…" she shakes her head slightly, reaching out and wrapping her fingers round his. "This… this is perfect. I could be right here forever and a day."

 **Well, Claire and Owen got kind of carried away there (that was _not_ part of the plan for this chapter, but I guess you can't argue when a woman gets excited by a man in uniform, can you?). Quite a few more parts to come, definitely. Keep up with the feedback, please!**

 _ **(and I'm not great at coming up with company names... apologies for Freshlife – if anyone wants to offer anything better, I'd be up for taking suggestions!)**_


	6. VI

**Well, this one's a big chapter. You may think lots happens, but sometimes everything happens at once, and not necessarily in the preferred order. Hope you enjoy – I would really love to hear from you!**

 **Part VI**

That first spring break after they move, Zach and Gray do come over to stay as promised. Claire invites (almost insists) that Karen comes as well, but in the end she decides to meet the boys there for the last weekend – she's been getting slowly busier without Scott, and she is blessed with a number of good friends.

The boys settle themselves in the spare bedroom right away, without any words – Claire had been expecting to set one of them up on the couch whilst the other took the bed in the spare room, but she supposes they're still closer than they'd ever been before, brought together by events that no one could have second guessed, and irreversibly, she supposes, it having been more than a year.

Zach's still messaging that girl from his Economics class, and he even mentions how Claire and Owen should meet her next time they're in Wisconsin, so she supposes she's slightly more than a friend. And Gray seems to have turned to an obsession (which she suspects is equal to the one he had for dinosaurs, though the word dinosaur never even leaves his lips, these days) with aeroplanes. Aeroplanes have less teeth, she supposes.

So Gray is talking animatedly to Owen about the newest engine design, amidst interviewing him about his time on a US Navy aircraft carrier, whilst Zach is smiling privately to himself at something on his phone.

She smiles.

As Owen had promised her, that first night in the hotel bar, still covered in blood, sweat and grime.

They were gonna be fine.

* * *

Zach's gone to help Owen get some furniture for the beach decking, and she finds Gray sat on the edge of the decking, his heels in the sand. He's got a plane manual open on his lap, but she gets the impression he's not really looking at it.

She sinks onto the decking next to him.

"How're you holding up?"

He looks up at her, and it sends something of a chill to her bones, then, how it's still not quite a child looking back at her anymore. And she doesn't suppose it will ever be.

"I'm alright." He smiles, and there's maybe some honesty behind that smile.

"How you sleeping these days?" she asks, tentatively, unsure if it's wise.

"Better." He turns his head, looks onto the beach. "Ever since Zach got all serious about Elise he stopped always being there. But that's ok, because I don't need him always there anymore."

Claire puts her hand over his, and he's not quite old enough to shrug it off yet.

"He still looks out for me, though."

And she smiles, and considers everything that might be behind them.

* * *

When Karen comes down at the weekend, she's sporting a huge smile and more enthusiasm than is healthy, her sister thinks. She's full of stories of the spa day she took with 'some girls from work', a new and sudden interest in the interior design of their new house on the beach, and a thousand possible plans for coming to LA again in the summer.

Claire takes all three of them to the airport in the end, leaving Owen in peace to mark some progress reports, after a goodbye more emotional than expected. Gray had thrown his arms around him and even Zach had pulled him into a rough, half-hearted 'guy hug' when shaking his hand. At the airport, after the boys both hug their aunt and head on through to the departure lounge, Karen catches her sister's hand.

"I don't think Scott ever looked at me like Owen looks at you, Claire."

She can't help the flush rising in her cheeks. "Don't be silly, Karen. It went sour… but he loved you, and he loved you for a long time."

Karen gave a half smile, shaking her head. "I know. But never like that. That man would walk through hell and back for you. Don't… you've been terrible at relationships before… don't let him go…"

Claire smiles as she shakes her head, slightly incredulously. "I have no intention of it, I promise you."

* * *

After a hard day at work, followed by getting caught behind a nasty road accident on the way home, and standing with her arms around the teenage sister of a pedestrian who'd been rushed into hospital, she walks into the house to find the back door open and Owen on the edge of the decking out back, a beer in his hands, scuffing his feet in the sand.

She kisses him, somewhat half-heartedly, and sinks down next to him.

"I have had the worst day ever known to man." Owen grumbles, swilling the last few sips of beer in the bottom of his bottle.

Claire raises one eyebrow, tired. "I'll challenge you on that one." She chuckles, dryly, and puts a hand around his as he sets the beer bottle down.

When he looks up, and his eyes meet hers, there's something in them she's never seen before.

"Marry me?"

"What?"

Owen chuckles, and runs a hand through his hair, looking towards the sea. "Marry me." He says again, more conviction in his voice than the first time. "I want to be right here, right next to you, on all the worst days for the rest of my life. Because if being with you makes it feel this good when it's all going wrong…" he sighs, and grasps her hand, making eye contact with her for the first time since he started. "I don't want this ever to end. Marry me."

She feels like a teenage girl again. The teenage girl getting asked to senior prom, the teenage girl she never was. She's Claire Dearing, the formidable business executive, the woman that outran a dinosaur, the one who came back fighting, but in that moment, she's just Claire, and her hand is shaking in his and she can't find a voice. He's starting to look less like his usual, self-assured self, and more like he's doubting, and that's when she fully realises how much she must mean to him. How much _this_ must mean to him.

"Yes." She half whispers, pressing her forehead into his shoulder, a great shuddering breath shaking her own. "Yes."

* * *

She finds out one morning, not long after the terrible-day-turned-best-night-of-her-life on the decking. She finds herself throwing up into the toilet for the fourth morning in a row, and in trying to calculate how many days past her last period's due date she is, she realises it's not the first one she's missed.

She's got a test stored in her bathroom cabinet (always prepared) and she takes it straight away in an almost business like fashion, hardly allowing herself to think about the result. When Owen starts hammering on the door to use the toilet now he's woken up, she hides the test (still calculating) in the cupboard and brushes out past him, without even making eye contact.

Turns out she didn't hide it very well, however. He comes out of the bathroom with it in his hand and an almost unreadable expression on his face.  
She looks at her bedside clock. The time needed has lapsed.

"Were you planning on telling me?" he asks, and there's still something alien about his expression.

"It wasn't done." she says, her voice sounding tiny. "I don't know if I have anything to tell you."

He sets the test down on the dressing table, and takes a step towards her, allowing a smile to touch his lips now. "You have something huge to tell me."

"I do?"

The smile widens. "You do. And I'm thinking we should pull that wedding date right forward."

 **Hope you enjoyed! And I'd really love to hear what you think, even if it's only a few words!**


	7. VII

**Sorry it's been so long, placements are even busier than revision!**

 **Part VII (otherwise known as the wedding, part one)**

Karen's the first person she phones, when they decide to book a wedding out in an old holiday condo in Connecticut belonging to the family of one of Owen's colleagues. They're not ready to tell anyone _why_ they're bringing it so much closer, but Karen's not one to miss a trick.

"Wait… you're getting married next month? Hmmm…" she muses, "Something's changed, Claire."

Sweating slightly, Claire denies anything. "No, no…we just… wanted to get on with it."

Karen snorts. "That definitely sounds like something's changed. You weren't going to get married until next Christmas… why would you… Claire…"

"We had to take this slot in the condo, we-"

Claire can almost imagine the lightbulb flickering on over her sister's head, as she suddenly adds everything together. "Oh my god, Claire, are you pregnant?"

Claire's silence is all the answer her sister needs. Because despite all their differences, they've always been able to read each other.

"How far along?"

She takes a deep breath. Her sister knowing, that shouldn't jinx anything, right? "Early. We think nearly ten weeks. We're not telling anyone yet."

Karen makes some kind of gushing noise that sounds somewhat unintelligible. Despite having agreed with Owen that they were going to be the only ones to know until at least twelve weeks, she can't help but feel a weight off her chest, sharing it with her sister.

"Oh this is…" Karen starts, but Claire sighs, and her sister trails off.

"It's early, Karen. Really early. Nothing might come of it. I can't… I can't get excited, not just yet…"

* * *

They fly out to the condo a week before the wedding, in the end, and they spend a week in bed – Owen jokes it's their last week of 'illicit lovemaking out of wedlock' –, on a little rowing boat on one of the lakes, and talking about the little girl they've been told they're having.

Because Claire's fifteen weeks now, and starting to show a little bump. Her hormones are raging, but that only works in Owen's favour in the bedroom – he's never seen her so _enthusiastic_ (even those first weeks in his navy uniform), and she's utterly exhausting. But they lay and languish in bed for most of the mornings, and all they do is a little rowing in the afternoons, so everything balances.

Late one afternoon, as they float on the lake, Owen broaches the subject.

"We should start thinking about names."

Claire suddenly looks shy, and looks down at her hands. "I was thinking Charlotte… I was thinking Charlie."

There might be the hint of a tear in his eyes, or that might just be the light, with the setting sun and the wide, still lake.

* * *

The night before the wedding, he kisses her after they've finished the bottle of Rioja on the lakeside balcony of the condo.

"There's a taxi waiting outside for you." He murmurs, "I can't see you tonight."

She frowns slightly. "Where am I going?"

He shrugs, a chuckle behind his eyes. "I have no idea. Karen assures me she'll take good care of you, and you won't be drinking, so I'm not too worried… be there in the morning, at the end of the aisle… that's all I ask."

She presses her lips to his briefly. "And you, be good." She smiles, "I know what you Navy guys get up to."

He rolls his eyes slightly, kissing her again. "You have no idea."

* * *

Karen, a few of her new friends from work, and their one cousin, Ashley, who's just turned 24 and makes Claire feel ridiculously old, go out for a nice meal at a gourmet restaurant and sit around, drinking lots of wine (or orange juice in Claire's case) and talk about nothing, everything and very little that's useful all at once.

Towards the end of the evening, Claire's work friends excuse themselves one by one, and Ashley receives a call from her boyfriend, a newly qualified fireman, on his way home from work to pick her up, leaving Karen and Claire in the quiet corner of the restaurant.

"Scared?" Karen asks, and Claire finds herself smiling, shaking her head.

"More ready than I've ever been for anything, really."

Maybe, just for a second, Karen's eyes are a little wet. She reaches out and takes her sister's hand.

"I am so jealous of you, right now, Claire bear. You've got this perfect guy, and you've got everything ahead of you, and before you know it there'll be a little one in your arms you can't even begin to imagine how much you're going to love, and-"

"Are you going to give me some pep talk from a divorced woman about keeping it magical?"

Karen rolls her eyes. "Something like that." She laughs. "But don't… don't let it get away. Fight for everything you've got right now, and everything you'll have when you have this baby, because it's never going to get any better…"

"I know." Claire smiles, looking down at her hands. "Sometimes I think I don't deserve it."

* * *

She walks down the makeshift lakeside aisle in a deep, rich, royal blue dress, because she'd always used to wear white, and she wasn't that person anymore. The look on Owen's face as she steps towards him, with Karen just behind her in a paler blue, is something else. She's never felt so utterly _loved_ as in that moment, even by her own mother, God rest her soul. He gives her another, smaller smile, seemingly one reserved just for her, as she steps up beside him.

They decided a long time ago they were going to write their own vows, and true to character, Claire has two A4 sheets of pristinely typed words, and Owen has nothing but a shrug, a smile and his own heart. But as he starts, Claire finds the urge to rip up her sheets getting stronger.

"When we met, we were nothing like each other, you were the boss woman and I was some dirty raptor trainer with a bad attitude to authority. I somehow managed to get you to agree to go out on a date with me, and I screwed that up too, and I thought we were too far apart to ever be what one another needed. But suddenly we were both struggling to survive and I realised I didn't want anything more than to keep you safe. And I want to keep you safe for the rest of your life. We came out on the other side of a terrible disaster, and we needed something to lean on. Under the influence of a lot of tequila, a lot of fear and very little sleep, we started leaning on each other. I want to be able to lean on you, and let you lean on me for the rest of our lives. And then you were saying something stupid, or doing something stupid-" Claire raises her eyebrows slightly, but the huge smile on his face keeps her quiet. "-and I realised I was completely and irrevocably in love with you. And for some reason you tell me you feel the same way." He takes a deep breath. "Claire Dearing, I want to be completely and irrevocably in love with you for the rest of my life. I want to protect you and look after you to the best of my abilities, and I want to be your shoulder to lean on, and be able to lean on you. I offer you everything I have, and maybe once, that wouldn't have _fit,_ with what you needed, with what you wanted. But I think… I hope… it does now."

Tears in her eyes, she clenches her fist around her planned words, and takes a tiny step closer to him.

"I had a thousand things to say." She gives him a little smile. "But after that, I don't think any of it was even half good enough. So I'm… I'm going to be spontaneous, which I know you don't think I am often enough."

There's a twinkle in his eye as she hands the screwed up piece of paper to Karen, who has tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I love you, Owen Grady, more than I ever thought I could love a person. And you're frustrating, confusing and so far from what I thought I was looking for sometimes I think people think I've gone mad. But I changed. What happened to us changed me, but you changed me too, and for the better. I'd never had someone to cry to before, I'd never had someone to use as a shelter when everything was crumbling. I'd been so focused on being the independent Claire Dearing that I hadn't thought for even one moment it might be _nice_ to need someone. Because I need you. More than anything. And that doesn't scare me, not like I thought it would. I want to need you for the rest of my life, and be there when you need me. I'm not the same person I was before I loved you. And I don't want to go back."

She clasps his other hand, looking at the chaplain, an indication they're finished.

She barely whispers 'I do', her heart is beating so fast, and she's certain she feels his hand tremble.

When he crushes his lips against hers after _you may now kiss the bride_ , it's not quite the same as it's ever been before.

He suddenly tastes of the future.

 **Jeez, even the wedding turned into 2 chapters! It would appear this fic is fighting tooth and nail never to die! Thanks for sticking with me and my sporadic updates, and I'd love to hear anything you have to say. Hope you're still enjoying!**


	8. VIII

**Part VIII (otherwise known as the wedding, part two)**

They have a moderate selection of guests – there's nothing like seeing your life ready to end in front of your eyes to drive the point home that you only need to stick with the people that really matter. Alongside family - Karen, the boys, and Ashley for Claire, and a wide assortment of cousins for Owen - there are a few of Claire's good school friends, a number of her new colleagues, Barry and Lowery, and a rowdy cohort of Navy SEALs. Barry's Owen's best man, and Karen's Claire's maid of honour and chief bridesmaid, but they get a little more unconventional when it comes to the father daughter dance, and for a moment, Claire's heart is thumping, hoping this is going to be ok. Her father's been dead since she was twelve, it's not that that she's worried about. It's how perfect and fairytale this whole day has been, and the teenage girl with dreams of a perfect, _normal_ wedding somewhere deep inside of her, wondering if this will _sit right._

Before she turns to ask her eldest nephew if he'll take this dance with her, he extends his hand.

"Aunt Claire, will you do me the honour of dancing this one with me?"

There are tears in her eyes as she steps onto the dancefloor again with Zach.

"I hope this is alright." He looks bashful, worried. "Owen approached me about this weeks ago, and I've been taking some dancing lessons… I'm still not very good, but Elise says I'm much better…"

There's a lump in her throat so big she's not sure words will come out, but she manages a whisper.

"Thank you, Zach." She smiles slightly wider. "And it'll work well with Elise… women love a man that can dance."

He blushes even more violently. "That's what Owen said. He's been taking the class with me, said he couldn't disappoint you on the day with two left feet…"

She swallows, and glances briefly around Zach's head to Owen, pulling Karen away from the Navy SEAL she's been flirting with all night and onto the dance floor, laughing. She offers a wide smile as her husband's eyes meet hers. _Her husband._ That still sounds completely alien, ridiculous and magical all at once. She supposes she's going to have to start getting used to it.

* * *

Later in the evening, when swaying slowly in his arms again, she glances around, absorbing everyone in the room around her. Zach's dancing close with Elise, who seems a very nice, sensible girl, everything he needs, Karen's with her Navy SEAL again, and she spots Lowery dancing with one of her close friends from work. One of the other bridesmaids.

With a sudden jolt of memory, she realises Lowery and Barry are the only Jurassic World faces in the room, and with a sudden, unexpected pang of grief, and guilt, and a whole lot of regret, she realises she would have most certainly asked Zara to be one of her bridesmaids.

Owen doesn't miss a thing, he notices her face fall.

"What you thinking?" he asks, running his thumb across her cheekbone. "I thought we agreed, no looking back today."

She sighs, and smiles, moving slightly closer to him, pressing her lips briefly against his. "Zara." She breathes, "She would have been here. She was so young, Owen… she was engaged, you know…"

He sighs, his eyes focusing on something far in the distance for a second. "We agreed we weren't going to let it affect us for the rest of our lives, Claire. And we agreed we weren't going to let it ruin today… it's always going to be part of us, we're never going to forget it, we just need to-"

"I know." She says softly. "I just needed a moment to remember her."

* * *

It's late, and only a few straggling guests remain, in various states of inebriation. Karen is still deep in conversation with her Navy SEAL (who Owen assures her is a genuinely nice guy, and one of his oldest friends), Gray has fallen asleep in the corner after a little champagne, and Zach and Elise are the only people still left on the dancefloor. Claire and Owen stand together on the edge of the marquee, looking out into the night. They've decided to stay in the condo on the lakeside for another week for a honeymoon, both revelling in the quiet, distant-from-the-world feel of the idyllic cabin and boat on the lake.

He passes her another champagne flute (of lemonade) and leans into her, placing a hand lightly on her small bump. She gives a smile so small it's hardly there, and rests her forehead against his cheek. He sets his champagne down and snakes his other arm around her waist.

"Mrs Grady." He breathes, still marvelling at the both how alien and how familiar that manages to sound, all at once.

She sighs. "And I'm still keeping my name, Owen. I've been in business as Claire Dearing for too long to change-"

"At least let me call you Mrs Grady… it's… surprisingly hot, considering the last Mrs Grady I knew was my own mother…"

Claire wrinkles her nose slightly, but smiles wider, pressing her lips lightly against his skin.

"Ok. You can call me Mrs Grady, as long as there's no one else to hear."

He grins, and moves his hand to her lower back, splaying his fingers and pulling her a little closer. He doesn't miss her breath hitching, either. He nuzzles into her neck.

"We don't need to be here much longer, do we?" he murmurs against her skin, and the familiar tiny smile he's come to love more dearly than anything else graces her lips.

"I don't think anyone'll notice if we slip away right now." She whispers back, setting her glass down and lacing her fingers through those of the hand not burning through the thin blue fabric onto her skin. "They're all drunk or asleep."

He darts his eyes behind her for a second, noticing no eyes on them.

"Come on then." He grins, "I want to get to know Mrs Grady intimately."

They dash beyond the marquee, back towards the condo.

He decides, as they run, laughing, that theatrical send offs are overrated anyway.

* * *

She's all proper again when they finally get back to their condo, shutting herself in the bathroom to unzip and remove the dress. Owen groans from the other side of the door.

"Are you trying to kill me, woman? I came back to the condo for you, I was all for becoming _one with nature_ or whatever on the way up the hill, and you-"

She opens the door, and tips her head around, letting him graze her lips, breathlessly.

"I am not, and have never been, that kind of girl, Owen. You should have known what you married." She giggles, the concept still so bizarre and fantastical. "And I'm just getting this dress off and safe before you rip it off me… you're not very respectful of clothing, and this was expen-"

He cuts her off, crushing his lips to hers, a little more violently this time. She gasps against him, letting go of her firm hold of the door, letting it swing loosely, the dress only loosened and slipping at her shoulders.

"I'll be careful." He breathes, tongue snaking down her neck, "I promise…"

And true enough, he pulls the dress down almost reverently, trailing kisses as he descends, slipping it gently over her hips. It falls, near forgotten to the floor as he slips his fingers into the side of her panties, one finger finding her centre straight away and pushing – only slightly – inside her. She almost chokes on that feeling, after so much anticipation, and she kicks the dress aside herself.

Owen fully clothed, and Claire only in some navy lace underwear and a pair of royal blue six inch heels, they stumble into the bedroom. He pushes her against the bed - gently, he's been making sure to be less rough since they found out about the baby – and kicks off his own shoes and loosens his belt as he falls against her, letting her hands snake up under his once crisp white shirt, and her mouth crush against his – breathless, impatient, desperate.

Suddenly she's all fingers and he's losing the upper hand – suddenly there are fingers wrapping around him in his pants, too, suddenly she's pushing his briefs over his hips. He registers how eager she is and rolls her own panties down, out of the way, before pulling her hand away, twining his fingers through hers, and crashing into her, eliciting a scream.

She writhes around him, bucking her hips and pressing her face into his neck, bringing her hands both to the small of his back, pushing him into her. The sudden force catches him off guard, and he speeds up, threading one hand through her hair, and bringing the other back down to tease her clit, to the same rhythm as his thrusts.

She comes seconds before he does, with nothing but a scream, and when he finishes, he pants "Mrs Grady" against her skin.

She curls around him, the beginning of a baby in between them, and he curls the sheets around them both, pressing his lips to the top of her head, closing his eyes.

"Sweet dreams, Mrs Grady." He whispers, and places a hand lightly against her slight bump. "And you, baby Grady. Don't keep your momma up."

Claire half heartedly raises an eyebrow – she'd made it quite clear that she didn't want him talking to her bump – but at the sight in front of her: Owen against the crisp white pillow, his eyes closed, reaching out for her belly, a small smile on his lips, she chuckles lightly to herself and closes her own eyes.

"I love you." She breathes as she falls asleep.

"Love you forever." He murmurs, already half asleep, the day catching up with both of them. Somehow it holds more meaning tonight than it ever has before.

 **Hope you enjoyed! Sorry for the delay in updating! Would love a few words on what you think of this chapter!**


	9. IX

**I think we're on the home stretch now… a few more chapters coming your way, but only a few… I hope you feel this piece has given what I promised – the 'rest of their lives' essentially.**

 **Part IX**

Claire's bump suddenly becomes much more pronounced somewhere between 4 months and 5 months, and all of a sudden her back's in almost crippling pain, she needs to pee approximately every 10 minutes, and her ankles are swollen beyond belief. Suddenly, for a woman that had been planning to work literally until her waters broke – she's become almost as invested in this job as she had been before, although she'll always have slightly sturdier barriers, she'll never devote quite her all again to a job, to a company, and anyway, she's got a lot else to be thinking about now, a lot else a great deal more important – maternity leave seems like it can't come any sooner.

She sinks into the couch, exhausted, as every day when she gets in from work. Owen's usually only a few minutes behind her, and usually catches her napping on the couch, and wakes her with a hot, milky drink and sinks beside her on the couch, lifting her feet into his lap. But that afternoon, she's still awake, and her face is slightly hued red. She looks up as he steps in, and he walks right over.

"What's the matter?"

She shrugs, shaking her head, looking down at her hands. "Nothing. I'm being silly. I just-" she sighs, seemingly exasperated. "None of my clothes will fit. And I'm always tired. And I won't stop eating, I really want deep fried stuff… I'm fat, I'm greedy, I'm grouchy…" she trails off, still looking pointedly down, cheeks blushing a little more. Owen tucks a crooked finger under her chin and tilts her face, her eyes to meet his.

"You're beautiful. You're more beautiful than I've ever seen you. That's our little girl in there, making you tired, making you grouchy, making you greedy… and that's the most beautiful thing. And you're not fat. You're holding another tiny human, and if that's not an excuse to need some bigger clothes, I don't know what is..."

She presses her lips lightly against his, sighing against him. "I love you." She whispers, and then looks slightly shy as she says the next thing. She's never been the kind of girl to get all unnecessarily sentimental about anything, but she's never seen such overwhelming _pride_ in his face. "We love you."

* * *

Baby Grady starts really kicking around 6 months, at all angles, at all hours, and with more force than seems believable for a baby just smaller than an eggplant. Claire gets backache and stomach pains from it, and even grouchier than before.

On a good day, when she supposes baby's been sleeping most of the time, she thinks Owen is the perfect man, the perfect husband, for all the hot drinks he makes her at all hours, all the foot rubs, all the smiles and brave faces when she snaps at him for no reason. When baby Grady's particularly active, and she's running on the end of her patience, it's all entirely his fault. Baby Grady's entirely his and his alone, and she can hardly even look at him, let alone talk to him.

One night the kicking's violent enough to wake her up, and she heaves herself up on the pillows, sighing. She's got another week left to work, and trying to run on this little sleep will not be good for her or the baby. She quietly slides out of the bed and heads downstairs to heat herself up some milk, hoping it will ease her back to sleep, and maybe calm baby down a little. When she quietly sneaks back into the room, with the steaming mug, the light's on and Owen's climbing between the sheets. He looks up when she enters, and she's sure she catches relief flashing across his face.

"I tried not to wake you." She props up one of her pillows and sits against it. He snakes his hand into hers.

"I wake up, with you not next to me – I panic, Claire."

She rolls her eyes slightly, leaning into him. "Your daughter woke me up. I thought she might want some milk."

There's a seriousness in his face, however. "I mean it. You're seven and a half months, there's me thinking you've gone into hideously premature labour, or you…"

He trails off, and for a moment memories of lives balancing on a knife edge, deaths in front of them, crash around both of them. She squeezes his hand slightly, but no one says anything. They've got to start pushing it away. And they don't need to discuss it to know what they're both thinking.

"I can assure you," she laughs, "I will definitely let you know when I go into labour. If she's your daughter when she's kicking me, she'll definitely be your daughter when she's trying to force her way out of my body! I'll be screaming at you, you wouldn't be able to stay asleep if you were dead…"

He lays his other hand, palm flat on her belly. "You've gotta stop kicking in the night, Charlie." He breathes, and though they'd agreed on the name months ago, it's the first time anyone's actually called the bump by the name; she's been baby Grady.

It brings a tiny tear to Claire's eye.

* * *

The day of her due date is thankfully a Saturday, so Owen sits by her side in an eager, nervous and almost overbearing anticipation. He offers her a drink nearly every five minutes, makes her get up and walk down to the sea every half hour – for 'fresh air and maybe to dislodge Charlie' – and he updates Karen on her progress on the hour, every hour.

And he asks Claire how she's feeling almost twice a minute. Claire considers expectant Daddy Owen is far more stressed than expectant Mommy Claire, and that Owen _fussing_ over the mother of his child should be considered as an alternative method of torture – she decides it would turn anyone mad eventually. She tolerates him until 3:37 in the afternoon, and, feeling like she's balancing on the brink of explosion, she takes a deep breath.

"Owen, you need to back off."

He frowns.

"I'm fine. I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday, I'll let you know if Charlie decides she wants to come." Another deep breath. "But right now, nothing's changed. Only 4% of babies are born on their due date, and 1 in 5 babies are after 41 weeks… that's after next week, Owen, you can't sit by my side like this for the next week, I'll go mad."

Owen sighs, but seems to take a deep breath of his own. He presses his lips briefly against hers, allowing a smile to grace his lips. "Only you would throw the statistics at me like that to make that point. I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"Excited?"

He sighs again, taking her hand. "Excited, nervous, terrified…"

"Me too." She says in a tiny voice.

* * *

In the end, Charlotte Zara Grady is four days late, battles her way out in the early hours of a Wednesday morning, screams louder than anything they've ever heard, and has a full head of red hair and inquisitive baby blue eyes.

From somewhere between week one and when their little girl makes one month, Claire and Owen reach some sort of unspoken conclusion that she's more of a Lottie than a Charlie in the flesh, anyway.

She's a daddy's girl from day one - Claire can never understand how she can pace with the little one for what seems like hours, screaming never ceasing, but the moment she passes her over to Owen she falls silent.

But when she is sleeping, Claire likes to watch her. She's perfect - and she's sure everyone's thought that about their baby forever, but they've never been right. She never thought of herself as a particularly motherly type, but when she stands there and watches Lottie doing nothing more than breathing; sleeping, so peacefully; she's overwhelmed by the enormity of how different everything feels now.

She has no doubt, from the first time she looks at her daughter, that Lottie is the greatest thing either she or Owen has ever done, will ever do. And that feeling's overwhelming.

(That is, of course, until Lottie is followed by Ben two and a half years later, and she's even more astounded that two people can do something so wonderful twice.)

 **But that's not the end, believe it or not… there should be a final chapter heading your way relatively soon (which will probably turn up quicker with lots of encouraging reviews :) – and if you're really nice to me I might throw together an epilogue!).**


	10. X

**Good heavens, I believe the little sequel to my first oneshot in a fandom turned into this beast!**

 **Part X**

He comes in from work one afternoon to the most beautiful picture. Claire is dozing on one of the decking chairs, with Lottie in her arms, sleeping soundly. There's not a sound in the world but the soft ebbing of the tide, and for a moment, he just watches them, a tiny smile on his lips. His girls.

He's been a father for a month and a half, and it's both so unbelievably new and slightly disconcertingly familiar at the same time. He notices his daughter fussing, from a tiny wrinkle of the brow and a slight sniffle seconds before his daughter stirs, and eases her out of Claire's arms to rock her. Claire herself stirs slightly, opening her eyes, but he presses his lips to her forehead, feeling her take a deep breath.

"I've got her." He whispers, "Keep your eyes closed."

Claire doesn't need much persuading. He rocks Lottie and paces along through the sand a few metres on the beach just in front of their decking, whispering sweet nothings to his little girl. She doesn't start crying, but looks up at him through wide, inquisitive eyes, and he tries to imagine the person she'll become.

She looks like her mother, sure, but he hopes she has a little more of his laid-back personality. Claire's got a lot better, a lot more relaxed, over the last two years they've been together, but it's taken a lot to happen to her in her life to carve that. And he wouldn't wish half of what he and Claire have survived through on his daughter. She's ten pounds of perfection, and she's more precious than he even realised something could be.

* * *

Lottie's a colicky baby, who doesn't sleep well, and Claire wonders when she'll ever sleep a whole night through again. It's everything she dreamt it to be and nothing like she expected all at once, being a mother, and she's run from blissfully happy to so utterly exhausted to feeling so hopelessly inadequate at least three times a day.

She's more tired than she's ever been, she doesn't even like looking in the mirror anymore – she's somewhat horrified by what she sees – and she's not sure when was the last time she saw another human being other than Owen and Lottie. She takes Lottie out for all the daily walks in the fresh air her little mothering pocketbook tells her to, but she walks her along the sand on the beach in the middle of the working week – and she and her daughter are alone in the world.

If you'd told her once, not so long ago, really, that Claire Dearing would be living in joggers and old shirts, not showering and putting makeup on every morning, and making lunches from peanut butter sandwiches, she'd have laughed, but now it's easy, and things that aren't completely _necessary_ are falling to the side. Everything aches, she can't remember what it feels like to wake up naturally, not to the screams of a six week old, and she expects she'll never have any time completely to herself ever again.

And she couldn't be happier.

* * *

The first time Claire wakes because of the sunlight creeping through their bedroom curtain, she panics. It's been four months, and she's got into such a habit, such a normalcy of being woken every couple of hours by screaming – and they've agreed that she gets up for the little one on a school night, when Owen has to leave for work in the morning – something must surely be wrong.

In heaving herself out of the bed, her heart thumping, she notices the emptiness beside her, and her breathing eases as she creeps through to her daughter's room, imagining, despite it being a Tuesday night, Owen must somehow have managed to get to Lottie before her mother woke.

The image in front of her as she pushes at the slightly ajar door takes her breath away. Owen, in the rocking chair, with Lottie in his arms, wrapped in a lilac blanket. His head rests back against the wood of the chair, and his mouth is slightly open in sleep. She watches his chest rise and fall gently against their daughter with a tiny smile on her face for a few moments, when she realises she's been holding her breath. Like she doesn't want to wake them, even with a tiny huff of air.

Like she doesn't want to break the moment.

* * *

Lottie starts teething at around seven months, and if they'd thought they had it bad before, it only gets worse. She's just started to sleep longer, to settle for most of a night, and suddenly it's an almost hourly thing, the screaming, and it can't even be quieted with feeding or diaper changing.

It's almost unbearable, looking into those almost grey eyes that appear so curled up in pain, and not being able to _do_ anything. Where they used to joke in the early weeks that Lottie had a good set of lungs from both her parents combined, they now wish she had some other way of telling them how she was feeling, what the problem was this time.

They both get even less sleep, their tempers wear even thinner, and they find themselves hardly communicating.

One night, after settling Lottie for the third time, and it still only being twenty three minutes past midnight, Owen props himself up on his elbows as Claire slips back into bed next to him.

"I'll take the next shift." He breathes, folding her against his side beneath the covers. She sighs and rests her head on his shoulder.

"I'm so tired." She breathes, snaking an arm around him, nuzzling into his neck. "I'm going mad, I think… I don't think I've spoken to anyone other than Lottie for days, and I can't make her happy! I just…"

"Shhh…" he whispers, stroking her hair. "It's going to get better. If this was the other way round, you were feeling yourself, you'd be telling me to stop being silly, all babies teeth, and you'd be able to give me some statistic about how many babies stay up all night because of it, it could be worse…"

She gives him a tiny, tired smile. "I don't feel like I've spoken to you in days. It's like you're right there but you're somewhere else too, and I… I can't lose you…"

Owen stares at her for a moment, considering maybe the complete lack of sleep and all the stress has rendered her somewhat delirious.

"Now you're being silly." He whispers, stroking her cheek with the side of his index finger. "You're never going to lose me, Claire. I'm sorry, it's not been nearly as tiring as yours, but I've had a busy week. I should have made more effort… I'm-"

"It's not your fault." She mumbles, letting her eyes drift close. "Not your fault. It's the stupid teeth."

He presses his lips against her hair with a tiny, almost imperceptible chuckle. "Sorry, anyway. Now go to sleep. I'll take all the shifts until the morning."

She opens her eyes, suddenly wide and eternally grateful.

"You'd do that for me?" she's almost breathless, and there's a slight flush to her cheeks with something between excitement and gratitude.

Owen gives her a deep belly laugh then, pulls her further into his arms and twines his legs with hers. "I'd do anything for you. You should know that by now. Now get some sleep."

"Love you." She murmurs as she drifts off…

* * *

When Karen, who's been visiting frequently, nearly every other weekend, turns up at ten months, a week and two days, Claire hasn't remembered she's going to be a day early. And after finally settling Lottie at four o'clock in the morning, it's something of a miracle she's still asleep when her sister hammers on the door at eight thirty. Confused for a moment, and then with the memory of Karen's plans, she drags herself out of bed and skulks downstairs to open the door, completely refusing to look in a mirror.

As she opens the door, Lottie starts crying, and she lets Karen in before rushing upstairs to check on her little one. This time it's only time for a diaper change, so when she ambles down the stairs with Lottie on her hip, her sister's putting the kettle on. Karen looks up as she comes in, and gives something of a crooked smile. After cups of coffee are made, served, and the sisters sit around the kitchen table, Lottie still bouncing on her mother's knee, Karen smiles wider.

"Claire, you look amazing."

She practically snorts. "I don't. These joggers are a week old, I'm pretty sure that stain on the front of this T-shirt – which is Owen's, by the way, I'm not into the Bulldogs - is baby vomit, and I haven't slept more than a few hours since I was like five months pregnant. I look like death, Karen, that's the word you're looking for!"

Her sister gives her something of a knowing (and mildly patronising) smile. "Not that. Your eyes, when you look at your little one. The smile on your face you probably don't even realise is there. The way you're holding… motherhood suits you, little sis. You look…"

Claire raises an eyebrow. "Don't say radiant, Karen, I'll-"

Karen shakes her head. "I was gonna say happy. Happier than I've ever seen you before."

* * *

When Lottie's eleven and a half months, she looks up from her highchair one morning, tilts her head slightly, and announces "milk" with a slightly impatient look to her. Claire and Owen both stop in their tracks, spinning to look at their daughter, somehow subconsciously expecting some sort of grand fanfare or something for her first word, but she just frowns impatiently and repeats herself.

A huge smile on her face, Claire passes the sipping cup of milk to her daughter. "That's right, Lots, milk. Can you say anything else? How about Mommy? Daddy?"

Lottie looks between the two of them, Owen now crouching at her highchair too. She takes a long slurp of her milk and smiles, a slight glint in her eye that Claire's already diagnosed as Owen's mischievous, not-always-rule-abiding nature. She gives a little chuckle, as if she knows exactly what they're looking for, and that she holds all the power.

"Milk."

 **Hope you enjoyed! Baby!fic's so much fun to write, I hope it's not getting OOC. This fic WILL NOT die and does not abide by the rules – I tell it this is going to be the final chapter, to only be followed by an epilogue, and it can't even stick to that! There'll be one more chapter before the epilogue now! Please keep reviewing, even if only to tell me you're still enjoying the ride!**


	11. XI

**Ok, guys, this one's the last chapter. Sorry it's been so long, I've been on long long shifts in the hospital – as a reward for being so patient, it's the longest chapter yet :) There should be a short epilogue up soon, too! Thanks to all of you that have been with me for the whole ride, those of you that picked up somewhere along the way, and especially those of you that took two minutes to review! Couldn't have done it without you!**

 **Part XI**

They start looking for a nanny for Lottie when she's nearly at her first birthday – Claire'll be going back to work in weeks now, and they'll need someone they're feeling comfortable leaving their little girl with. But no one seems to make the cut. It's Owen, actually, who seems to find a flaw in every possible candidate, no matter how qualified, how experienced, how friendly when they meet. Obviously, Lottie liking the nanny is a must, but she's a social little girl, full of smiles and laughs and willing to rest on anyone's hip offering tickling, lullabies and a cup of warm milk, so Owen can't even use his daughter as an excuse.

It runs the pair of them thin, and alters their temperaments. Because Claire can't help feeling she's wasting both her own and the potential candidates' time when she's interviewing them, knowing Owen's going to find another excuse not to accept them. They stop talking to one another about it, but it runs through the air between them, and Claire finds herself sleeping restlessly.

She phones Karen in the end, in both desperation and to catch up with the sister who's been in something of a second first whirlwind romance the past year and a half with Gareth Johns, the tall, dark haired, olive skinned Navy SEAL she'd met at her sister's wedding. Gareth is everything Claire never knew Karen needed, charming, not too committal and kind hearted. He gets on unbelievably with Gray (Zach started college in the fall, both he and the still present Elise going to Madison), and they have another apartment now in the town, nearer Karen's work, and nearer Gray's new high school.

He's everything Scott wasn't, and somehow, that's exactly what's needed. In the moments Claire has to consider it, between middle of the night feeds, bickering with Owen about a nanny and trying to get a few minutes of ever-precious sleep, she couldn't be happier. There have been too many moments in the last few years she's felt almost _guilty_ for this happiness she fell so unpredictably into, after her whole world came crumbling down, when her sister was still so miserable. These days, she feels a little warm swell when she sees her sister with Owen's old friend, and thinks how unexpectedly and yet somewhat easily everything turned out.

For both of them, she supposes.

"Morning, sis." Karen sounds chirpy. She suspects it's Gray's weekend with Scott, and her sister's talking to her from a lazy morning between the sheets with Gareth.

"Nannies." Claire groans. She can almost see the confused frown on Karen's face.

"Sorry?"

"We can't find Lottie a nanny. I know it's difficult, and I know there are a lot of boxes to tick, but Owen won't have anyone, no one's good enough… I'm going back to work next month, Karen, and I can't-"

"Breathe, Claire." She hears Karen sit herself up. "Hang on a sec…"

Claire rolls her eyes as she hears hushed voices in conversation. One's clearly Gareth. Really happy couples have always exasperated her, and that hasn't changed since she's been one half of an infuriatingly happy couple.

When Karen comes back on the line, Claire's patience is wearing thin. She hasn't slept for longer than an hour and a half at a time in the last week, and it's taking its toll.

"Claire, hear me out on this one."

Gritting her teeth, Claire doesn't say anything.

"Gareth's little sister Megan is in California, a few miles out of LA, I think."

Claire's eyebrows reach Alaska. "And?"

A slight huff from her sister. "She's got a masters in early childhood development, and nearly ten years experience looking after kids, from smaller than Lottie to when they get old enough to get the bus home from school by themselves… I can give you her number, if you'd like. Maybe Owen needs someone he knows he can trust…"

In that moment, Claire thanks God for Karen's sickeningly happy relationship.

* * *

Megan is perfect. Claire knows that from the moment she meets her, and there must be some sort of unspoken Navy SEAL rule that states you can always trust those whom fellow members of your platoon trust. Owen shakes her hand and smiles slightly loosely, but before long he's talking to her about working hours, pay and she's bending down and holding an incredibly animated conversation with Lottie about newts.

Claire feels a genuine weight off her chest, slightly less restrictions on breathing.

When she gets back in her business suit, tidies her hair and leaves her daughter with Megan, she doesn't feel the gut punch she was expecting, the fear at leaving her little girl all day for the first time in Lottie's short life.

She sheds a few tears on the way to work, however, it suddenly catching up with her, and Lottie having been so busy playing with Megan and a soft toy squirrel to even notice her mother leaving, let alone bother.

The first few weeks back at work are hard. Suddenly, work seems so _inadequate_ now she's done something so much… better with her life. She never thought she'd be that woman, but suddenly realising that if there was only one thing in the world she could do she'd pick being a mother without blinking an eyelid, she acknowledges she's become that woman, with very little choice.

The first night, when she gets home and Megan's set Lottie down for a nap, and her little girl's sleeping soundly, she shuts herself in the bathroom and cries. Hot, heavy, ugly tears. Because the dawning realisation that Lottie doesn't need her mother by her side all day, every day, and forever is too much to cope with all at once.

That night, she sits with Owen on the decking, leaning against his shoulder, staring up at the blackness in the sky.

"I don't think Lottie even misses me."

She can envisage her husband rolling his eyes slightly.

"Claire, she's one. Someone she likes playing with, who changes her diaper and feeds her is taking care of her – she feels safe, secure, taken care of. And anyway, she knows her Mommy will be back every day, eventually."

"You think?" she sniffs.

"I know." Owen breathes, pressing his lips to her head. "She knows because she knows no one loves her more in this world than her Mommy and her Daddy."

There's a silence, and then Claire gives a little chuckle. "Somewhere along the line, Lieutenant Grady, you turned into a sap."

* * *

He'd never understood what other parents had said before about watching their children's lives fly by in front of them, but all of a sudden Lottie's toddling around in the sand, a huge, innocent smile on her face, slightly reminiscent of the tiny little smile her mother gives without even thinking.

It's her second birthday before they know it, and Karen, Gareth, Zach, Elise and Gray make it across to sit on the beach in the sunset and sing songs and unwrap presents with the little girl, who is definitely not a baby anymore. Along with a few moms Claire, Owen and Megan have met at the park with children Lottie's age, they watch the little girl blow out the flames on two candles, and then look immensely proud of herself.

Owen catches Claire's hand for a moment, the proud look in his eyes as he looks at their little one all he needs to say.

It's only a few weeks after that that Claire props herself up on her elbows in their bed, and gives him one of her smiles that tells him she's hiding something.

"She's still asleep." She breathes, closing her eyes in almost bliss for a moment. "She's getting really good, now."  
He smiles, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "She's growing up. She's not a baby anymore."

Claire tilts her head slightly to one side, and lowers her eyes. "I miss having a baby around."

Owen half-snorts. "You didn't say that when she was teething, when she was colicking, the first few nights after we cut her milk down… you've got tunnel vision, you're not remembering how little sleep we had…"

"I miss having a baby around." She repeats, and then looks up at him, a sudden shyness in her eyes. "You fancy another one?"

He raises an eyebrow, unsure for a moment whether she's asking him, or trying to tell him something. When her smile starts to drop and she shifts her eyes again, he lets his smile widen.

"You got something to tell me, Claire?"

She blushes, and brings her eyes back to his. In that second, he can see so much in those eyes. There's excitement, apprehensiveness, joy, and the old fear of inadequacy he'd seen in them when she'd been expecting Lottie.

"I think I'm only seven or eight weeks… but I took a test. And then I took two more. And they were all positive." She reaches forward, cupping her hand around his cheek. "We can do this again, right?"

He nods, firmly, and then pulls her closer, pressing his lips to hers, clearing the tears in his eyes. "We can do this again."

* * *

Lottie's skipping across the sand when her daddy calls her over, asks her to sit down and hands her a strawberry popsicle.

"Lots, how would you like to be a big sister?" Owen smiles, "Have a baby brother or a baby sister?"

The girl seems to muse for a second before announcing "Think 'bout it."

Claire blanches slightly and Owen chuckles, taking his wife's hand.

"You don't get to choose, little one. There's a baby growing in your mommy's tummy right now, and soon, before your third birthday, you'll have a baby brother or sister."

The little girl frowns slightly, looking deep in thought. Then she smiles, as if having made up her mind.

"I want sister."

* * *

Ben isn't as straightforward as Lottie was. Claire's told to take time off work early and take bed rest with her high blood pressure, and, scans having revealed they're expecting a little boy, she follows it to the letter.

Megan sometimes seems the most excited of any of them, probably feeding off Lottie's excitement (once she came to terms with the fact that she was getting a little brother, the anticipation only seemed to escalate) and the exciting new idea of working with an older sibling in the early days. She helps Owen paint another of the bedrooms a shade of pale blue, and there's a stage where she seems to bring a 'for the new baby' present at least once a week.

Karen and Gareth, after getting hitched spontaneously and completely unaccompanied on a holiday in Vegas, without even the boys, which caused a huge family row with Gray (who's entered a stroppy teenager/junior in high school phase) for three days, until the younger Mitchell boy realised he hadn't ever seen his Mom this happy, are thrilled, but constantly joke about how they feel far too old for babies, and Claire and Owen aren't that much younger than them.

At night, sometimes, in the silence, with Owen sleeping curled against her and the soft sound of nothing at all from her daughter's room, Claire still worries. Worries that she won't have it in her to manage two of them at once, that she won't know what to do with a little boy, that she won't integrate them correctly and they'll grow up hating each other, and their parents for putting them in this situation. They're only night worries, however, and when she wakes up, especially after a good long sleep, with a clear head and daylight, she realises how ridiculous all the eventualities she creates are. She curls into Owen's side (whilst she still can, she's sure the bump's growing even faster than the Lottie bump did) and smiles to herself.

Her waters break two weeks premature, and she has an emergency C section when Ben insists on remaining footling breach. She's slightly groggier when her second baby's first put into her arms, but he's tiny, light, and Owen supports his head, and she finds tears in her eyes as she rests an exhausted forehead against her husband's shoulder.

"We did it again." She breathes, letting the little one latch on. "He's perfect."

* * *

The first time Lottie sees her little brother, in their mother's arms on return from the hospital, she frowns slightly.

"Bit ugly." She muses disdainfully, looking at her brother's screwed up eyes and sparse sprinkling of fair to medium brown hair.

Claire laughs, a light tinkle through the room. "He's no uglier than you were when you came out, young lady."

Lottie looks up at her with something of a disbelieving face, but doesn't argue.

After that, it's like she's auditioning for the role of model sister. She wants to help with everything, and although that's adorable and something both her parents are proud of, it's also something of a recipe for disaster. She's not even three yet, she's very good at getting under your feet, and she doesn't really know an awful lot about caring for babies.

A prime example is one afternoon when Owen comes in from work to find Claire and Lottie both sat on the floor in Ben's bedroom, the little boy sleeping soundly in his mother's arms, wrapped in a grey blanket, and a whole emptied baby bath on the floor across the room.

Owen raises an eyebrow as he looks through the door. "Anyone care to explain?"

Claire and Lottie start giggling, their eyes meeting, and then his daughter folds over laughing, and there are tears running down Claire's cheeks.

Momentarily, Owen wishes he could freeze the moment, indefinitely. It's so raw, spontaneous and characteristic, it's precious.

 **Your feedback would still be utterly appreciated this late in the game! It's always lovely to know someone's enjoying what you're writing!**


	12. XII: Epilogue

**Here we go then, team, this is the last slice of this story… This one goes out to kamarooka, for being my star reviewer!**

 **Part XII – Epilogue**

The sun is setting, just behind the horizon, and there's hardly a wave in the water. It's been a warm April this year, and there's a pleasant breeze as Claire leans back in her chair on their decking, watching Lottie tear around after her brother, the stocky little boy stumbling over all the sandcastles of earlier in the day. She smiles to herself. Ben's fifth birthday is next week, and she imagines he'll love the beach volleyball party they're planning on holding for ten of his friends, despite how mad it seems.

She notices Owen, then, walking back along the beach with their scruffy haired grey rescue mongrel. His smile widens as he approaches her, and as their dog runs down towards the children he whistles.

"Come on, Blue, dinner time, boy." Claire calls as she lays his food out on the decking. Still young, and full of all that energy, Blue scampers up and devours it, before settling in the sand, resting his head on his paws, watching the children with his big brown sad eyes. Owen sinks into the chair beside his wife, taking her hand.

"Speak to Karen?"

She smiles. "Gray got into MIT. I don't think she could be any prouder. Turns out he never got tired of planes."

"I'll have to call him – maybe next weekend? I've got a long week this week, with the cup, and I'm sure he's out celebrating tonight."

She smiles. "It'll be worth it, though. You'll be so proud when your boys win everything."

This year's Owen's first as head of the sports department, and despite all the stress he'd never thought he wanted, he's found a pride he never knew he had. He's been the main bread-winner of the family for nearly five years now, Claire having taken a step back and just organising the business a few days a week from home after Ben was born, and it turns out he prefers a position of authority more than he thought he would. And as for his wife's reaction to the title Lieutenant Commander Grady…

Claire's going back to work when Ben starts kindergarten in the fall, and although she's looking forward to it, she never missed it as much as she thought she would; somehow Owen and Lottie and Ben had created a person quite the opposite of the Claire Dearing she'd thought she once was.

But she doesn't want to go back to the Claire Dearing she once was. It's like she didn't know what she was missing.

"Any news on a date for the wedding yet?" Owen enquires, leaning back slightly further in his chair.

Ever since Zach and Elise had announced their engagement just after Christmas, dates had been constantly up for family discussion, and not primarily by the bride and groom. Apparently Karen had Claire's flair for organisation, and something of an addiction to it.

"It won't be for a long time, that's all I could get. I think Zach worked out he needs to work about four years on his income before he can pay for the wedding they want…"  
"I didn't think attorneys were exactly on the minimum…"

Claire chuckles. "I think they've got some _really_ expensive plans. Or they're just trying to get Karen to shut up…"

Owen laughs. For a moment, the barely-there waves lap and they watch the silhouettes of their children, now constructing another masterpiece sandcastle, only a couple of metres away from Blue.

They watch as Ben knocks a carefully constructed mound to the side slightly, and Lottie puts her hands on her hips, an almost caricature image, more alike her mother than she'll ever know.

"All of that came from us sticking together." Claire muses, turning her face to Owen's, his favourite half-smile on her lips. He twines his fingers with hers, staring down at them. His rough, callused skin - raptor-trainer hands from another life, over pale, smooth, long fingers.

He glances down the beach and watches his son wrap both his arms around his big sister, and Lottie place a kiss to his head. He squeezes Claire's hand gently and looks back up at her.

"Survival was pretty great, huh?"

FINIS

 **Thank you so much for all your support along the way, and I hope you've had half as much fun reading this as I have had writing it! At a point in my life where I had absolutely no time to write anything, and certainly not to walk into a new fandom, you were all so welcoming and encouraged me to write and write and write – and this fic's been a new experience, I've never had that before, a piece of work that literally doesn't want to end, keeps panning its way out into more chapters!**

 **I'd love it if you could find it in you to leave me one last little review – I value your feedback more than anything else!**


End file.
